Hostname: page-component-76d6cb85b7-5qg8f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-07-16T16:17:47.176Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Are Political Orientations Genetically Transmitted?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 June 2005

JOHN R. ALFORD ,
CAROLYN L. FUNK  and
JOHN R. HIBBING
JOHN R. ALFORD
Affiliation:
Rice University
CAROLYN L. FUNK
Affiliation:
Virginia Commonwealth University
JOHN R. HIBBING
Affiliation:
University of Nebraska
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

We test the possibility that political attitudes and behaviors are the result of both environmental and genetic factors. Employing standard methodological approaches in behavioral genetics—specifically, comparisons of the differential correlations of the attitudes of monozygotic twins and dizygotic twins—we analyze data drawn from a large sample of twins in the United States, supplemented with findings from twins in Australia. The results indicate that genetics plays an important role in shaping political attitudes and ideologies but a more modest role in forming party identification; as such, they call for finer distinctions in theorizing about the sources of political attitudes. We conclude by urging political scientists to incorporate genetic influences, specifically interactions between genetic heritability and social environment, into models of political attitude formation.

Information

Type
ARTICLES
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 99 , Issue 2 , May 2005 , pp. 153 - 167
Copyright
© 2005 by the American Political Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Adorno Theodore W., Else Frenkel-Brunswik, Daniel Levinson, and R. N. Sanford. 1950. The Authoritarian Personality. New York: Harper.
Alford John R., and John R. Hibbing. 2004. “The Origin of Politics: An Evolutionary Theory of Political Behavior.” Perspectives on Politics 2 (December): 707– 23.Google Scholar
Bargh J. A., and T. L. Chartrand. 1999. “The Unbearable Automaticity of Being.” American Psychologist 54 (July): 462– 79.Google Scholar
Bouchard T. J., Jr. 1998. “Genetic and Environmental Influences on Intelligence and Special Mental Abilities.” Human Biology 70 (2): 257– 59.Google Scholar
Bouchard T. J., Jr., and J. C. Loehlin. 2001. “Genes, Personality, and Evolution.” Behavior Genetics 31 (January): 23– 73.Google Scholar
Bouchard T. J., Jr., and Matt McGue. 2003. “Genetic and Environmental Influences on Human Psychological Differences.” Journal of Neurobiology 54 (1): 4– 45.Google Scholar
Bouchard T. J., Jr., D. T. Lykken, M. McGue, N. L. Segal, and A. Tellegen. 1990. “Sources of Human Psychological Differences: The Minnesota Study of Twins Reared Apart.” Science 12 (October): 223– 28.Google Scholar
Bouchard T. J., Jr., Matt McGue, D. T. Lykken, and A. Tellegen. 1999. “Intrinsic and Extrinsic Religiousness.” Twin Research 2 (June): 88– 98.Google Scholar
Boyd Robert, and Peter J. Richerson. 1985. Culture and the Evolutionary Process. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Breland Keller, and Marian Breland. 1961. “The Misbehavior of Organisms.” American Psychologist 16 (9): 681– 84.Google Scholar
Brewer Marilyn B. 2000. “Superordinate Goals Vs. Superordinate Identity as Bases of Cooperation.” In Social Identity Processes, ed. Dora Capozza and Rupert Brown. London: Sage.
Campbell Angus, Philip E. Converse, Warren E. Miller, and Donald E. Stokes. 1960. The American Voter. New York: John Wiley.
Carmines Edward G., and James A. Stimson. 1980. “The Two Faces of Issue Voting.” American Political Science Review 74 (March): 78– 91.Google Scholar
Caspi Avshalom, Karen Sugden, Terrie E. Moffitt, Alan Taylor, Ian W. Craig, Honalee Harrington, Joseph McClay, Jonathan Mill, Judy Martin, Antony Braithwaite, and Richie Poulton. 2003. “Influence of Life Stress on Depression: Moderation by a Polymorphism in the 5-HTT Gene.” Science 18 (July): 386– 89.Google Scholar
Converse Philip E. 1964. “The Nature of Belief Systems in Mass Publics.” In Ideology and Discontent, ed. David Apter. New York: Free Press.
Cook Timothy E. 1985. “The Bear Market in Political Socialization and the Costs of Misunderstood Psychological Theories.” American Political Science Review 79 (December): 1079– 93.Google Scholar
Crelia R. A., and A. Tesser. 1996. “Attitude Heritability and Attitude Reinforcement.” Personality and Individual Differences 21 (November): 803– 8.Google Scholar
Easton David, and Jack Dennis. 1969. Children in the Political System. New York: McGraw–Hill.
Eaves L. J., H. J. Eysenck, and N. G. Martin. 1989. Genes, Culture, and Personality: An Empirical Approach. San Diego: Academic Press.
Eaves L. J., N. G. Martin, and A. C. Heath. 1990. “Religious Affiliation in Twins and Their Parents.” Behavior Genetics 20 (January): 1– 22.Google Scholar
Eysenck H. J. 1954. The Psychology of Politics. London: Routledge.
Fiorina Morris P. 1981. Retrospective Voting in American National Elections. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Fiorina Morris P. 2005. Culture War? The Myth of a Polarized America. New York: Pearson Longman.
Gould Stephen Jay. 2000. “More Things in Heaven and Earth.” In Alas, Poor Darwin, ed. Hillary Rose and Steven Rose. New York: Harmony Books.
Greenstein Fred I. 1960. “The Benevolent Leader: Children's Images of Political Authority.” American Political Science Review 54 (December): 934– 43.Google Scholar
Hammond Ross. 2000. “Endogenous Transition Dynamics in Corruption: An Agent-Based Computer Model.” Brookings Institution. Typescript.Google Scholar
Hibbing John R., and John R. Alford. 2004. “Accepting Authoritative Decisions: Humans as Wary Cooperators.” American Journal of Political Science 48 (January): 62– 76.Google Scholar
Hibbing John R., and Elizabeth Theiss-Morse. 2002. Stealth Democracy: Americans' Beliefs about How Government Should Work. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Jennings M. Kent., and Richard G. Niemi. 1968. “The Transmission of Political Values from Parent to Child.” American Political Science Review 62 (March): 169– 83.Google Scholar
Jennings M. Kent, and Richard G. Niemi. 1991. “Issues and Inheritance in the Formation of Party Identification.” American Journal of Political Science 35 (November): 970– 88.Google Scholar
Kosack Steven T., and Mark Groudine. 2004. “Gene Order and Dynamic Domains.” Science 22 (October): 644– 47.Google Scholar
Lake Robert I. E., Lindon J. Eaves, Hermine H. M. Maes, Andrew C. Heath, and Nicholas G. Martin. 2000. “Further Evidence Against the Environmental Transmission of Individual Differences in Neuroticism from a Collaborative Study of 45,850 Twins and Relatives on Two Continents.” Behavior Genetics 30 (May): 223– 33.Google Scholar
Laswell Harold. 1930. Psychopathology and Politics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Lodge Milton, Kathleen McGraw, and Pat Stroh. 1989. “An Impression-Driven Model of Candidate Formation.” American Political Science Review 83 (June): 399– 420.Google Scholar
Lykken D. T. 1998. “The Genetics of Genius.” In Genius and the Mind: Studies of Creativity and Temperament in the Historical Record, ed. A. Steptoe. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Lykken David T. 1999. Happiness: What Studies on Twins Show Us about Nature, Nurture, and the Happiness Set Point. New York: Golden Books.
Maes H. H., M. C. Neale, N. G. Martin, A. C. Heath, and L. J. Eaves. 1999. “Religious Attendance and Frequency of Alcohol Use.” Twin Research 2 (June): 169– 79.Google Scholar
Marcus Gary. 2004. The Birth of the Mind. New York: Basic Books.
Marcus George E. 2002. The Sentimental Citizen: Emotion in Democratic Politics. University Park, PA: Penn State University Press.
Marcus George E., John L. Sullivan, Elizabeth Theiss-Morse, and Sandra L. Wood. 1995. With Malice Toward Some. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Marcus George E., W. Russell Neuman, and Michael MacKuen. 2000. Affective Intelligence and Political Judgment. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Martin N. G., L. J. Eaves, A. C. Heath, R. Jardine, L. M. Feingold, and H. J. Eysenck. 1986. “Transmission of Social Attitudes.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 15 (June): 4364– 68.Google Scholar
Masters Roger D. 1993. Beyond Relativism: Science and Human Values. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England.
McCloskey Herbert. 1958. “Conservatism and Personality.” American Political Science Review 52 (March): 27– 45.Google Scholar
McDermott Rose. 2004. “The Feeling of Rationality: The Meaning of Neuroscientific Advances for Political Science.” Perspectives on Politics 2 (December): 691– 707.Google Scholar
Merelman Richard M. 1986. “Revitalizing Political Socialization.” In Political Psychology, San Francisco: Jossey–Bass. ed. Richard Herrmann.
Monroe Kristen Renwick. 2004. The Hand of Compassion. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Orbell John, Tomonori Morikawa, Jason Hartwig, James Hanley, and Nicholas Allen. 2004. “Machiavellian Intelligence as a Basis for the Evolution of Cooperative Dispositions.” American Political Science Review 98 (March): 1– 17.Google Scholar
Page Benjamin L., and Calvin Jones. 1979. “Reciprocal Effects of Policy Preferences, Party Loyalties, and the Vote.” American Political Science Review 73 (December): 1071– 89.Google Scholar
Peterson Steven A. 1983. “Biology and Political Socialization: A Cognitive Developmental Link?” Political Psychology 4 (2): 265– 88.Google Scholar
Plomin R. 1990. “The Role of Inheritance in Behavior.” Science 13 (April): 183– 248.Google Scholar
Plomin R., D. W. Fulker, R. Corley, and J. C. DeFries. 1997. “Nature, Nurture, and Cognitive Development from 1 to 16 years: A Parent-Offspring Adoption Study.” Psychological Science 8 (November): 442– 47.Google Scholar
Plomin R., R. Corley, A. Caspi, D. W. Fulker, and J. DeFries. 1998. “Adoption Results for Self-Reported Personality: Evidence for Nonadditive Genetic Effects?” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 75 (July): 211– 18.Google Scholar
Plomin R., J. C. DeFries, G. E. McClearn, and P. McGuffin. 2001. Behavioral Genetics. 4th ed. New York: Worth.
Poole Keith, and Howard Rosenthal. 1997. Congress: A Political–Economic History of Roll Call Voting. New York: Oxford University Press.
Prescott Carol A., Ronald C. Johnson, and John J. McArdle. 1999. “Chorion Type as a Possible Influence on the Results and Interpretation of Twin Study Data.” Twin Research 2 (December): 244– 49.Google Scholar
Rhee S. H., and I. D. Waldman. 2002. “Genetic and Environmental Influences on Antisocial Behavior: A Meta-analysis of Twin and Adoption Studies.” Psychological Bulletin 128 (May): 490– 529.Google Scholar
Ridley Matt. 2003. Nature Via Nurture. New York: Harper Collins.
Rushton J. Philipe, Christine H. Littlefield, and Charles J. Lumsden. 1986. “Gene-Culture Coevolution of Complex Social Behavior: Human Altruism and Mate Choice.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 1 (October): 7340– 43.Google Scholar
Sacerdote Bruce. 2004. “What Happens When We Randomly Assign Children to Families?” National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper. Typescript.Google Scholar
Scarr S., and R. Weinberg. 1981. “The Transmission of Authoritarianism in Families: Genetic Resemblance in Social-political Attitudes.” In Race, Social Class, and Individual Differences, ed. S. Scarr. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Searing Donald, D. J. J. Schwartz, and A. E. Lind. 1973. “The Structuring Principle: Political Socialization and Belief Systems.” American Political Science Review 67 (June): 415– 32.Google Scholar
Sears David O. 1989. “Whither Political Socialization Research? The Question of Persistence.” In Political Socialization, Citizenship Education, and Democracy, ed. O. Ichilov. New York: Teachers College Press.
Sober Elliott, and David Sloan Wilson. 1998. Unto Others: The Evolution and Psychology of Unselfish Behavior. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Stouffer S. 1955. Communism, Conformity, and Civil Liberties. New York: Doubleday.
Tedin Kent L. 1974. “The Influence of Parents on the Political Attitudes of Adolescents.” American Political Science Review 68 (November): 1579– 92.Google Scholar
Tesser A. 1993. “The Importance of Heritability in Psychological Research: The Case of Attitudes.” Psychological Review 100 (January): 129– 42.Google Scholar
Truett K. R., L. J. Eaves, E. E. Walters, A. C. Heath, J. K. Hewitt, J. M. Meyer, J. Silberg, M. C. Neale, N. G. Martin, and K. S. Kendler. 1994. “A Model for Analysis of Family Resemblance in Extended Kinships of Twins. Behavior Genetics 24 (January): 35– 49.Google Scholar
Wegner Daniel M. 2002. The Illusion of Conscious Will. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Wiggins J., and P. Trapnell. 1997. “Personality Structure: The Return of the Big Five.” In R. Hogan, J. Johnson, and S. Biggs, ed. Handbook of Personality Psychology. San Diego: Academic Press.
Zaller John R. 1992. The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Zhang Xiaodong, Paul R. Gainetdinov, Jean-Martin Beaulieu, Tatyana D. Sotnikova, Lauranell H. Burch, Redford B. Williams, David A. Schwartz, K. Ranga, R. Krishnan, and Marc G. Caron. 2005. “Loss of Function Mutation in Tryptophan Hydroxlylase-2 Identified in Unipolar Major Depression.” Neuron 6 (January): 11– 16.Google Scholar
Submit a response

Comments

No Comments have been published for this article.